


Happy To Be Here (I’m Happy To Know You)

by blackorchids



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 02:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14761110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: Growing up with a soulmark that reads—body paint? Well I happen to be quite talented in all artistic mediums.has been a bit of a struggle. Thanks, Benvolio.





	Happy To Be Here (I’m Happy To Know You)

**Author's Note:**

> this did not turn out like I expected it to
> 
> title from the song _paperweight_ by joshua radin

Rosaline should’ve known that Livia hadn’t _really_ just wanted to catch up with her sister, jeez, Roz. She’s off work, so she meets her younger sister at the place Livia had chosen for brunch, some high-end monstrosity that made her instantly regret the decision to leave her edges free and curly. 

The pair of them share a pitcher of mimosas and bicker over whether or not it’s acceptable for Livia to be ordering a burger for brunch, and Livia even manages to look interested when Rosaline describes her week at work. Livia’s a writer, and so she makes her own hours and claims to be allergic to any discussion of stocks or the market, but Rosaline had been so pleased to be able to gush about a great call she’d made on instinct that she’d not given her conniving little sister’s uncharacteristic patience a second thought.

“This has been _so_ spectacular,” Livia says when they exit _The Golden Egg_ well past noon, tipsy and happy. “I’ve not seen much of you since they hired you on full-time.”

“If you spent more days of the week awake while the sun is up, we would be able to do this more often,” Rosaline teases, yelping when Livia digs her elbow into the overly sensitive area beneath her ribs. “Okay, mercy!” She gasps when the, honestly, quite cruel, onslaught of tickling and elbowing together becomes too much.

“If you don’t have plans for the afternoon, there’s somewhere I’d like to stop at,” Livia says cheerfully, a tad too casual.

Rosaline catches on immediately, though the happy flush of a morning spent with her favorite person doesn’t quite sour. “Not 1028 West Walnut, Liv,” Rosaline groans, drawing her elbow free of her sister’s so she can smack her in the shoulder out of sisterly ire. “You know what dad says, that—”

“—‘that you can’t just go _searching_ for your soulmate, you have to come across them naturally’, _I know_.” Livia finishes their father’s romantic mantra overtop Rosaline saying it, voices nearly in-sync after hearing it parroted to them so often as children. “I’m not loitering around the place, Roz,” Livia says defensively, pulling away so she can adjust the long sleeves of her thin cotton dress, one of which is covering the address that’s been on her forearm since she was born.

The place she’s to meet her soulmate, if the cards play out correctly.

Livia’s a writer, and she’s just that much more of a romantic than Rosaline could ever hope to be, so it makes sense that she’d been the one with the address as a beacon of hope throughout her entire adolescence. It was incredibly uncommon for someone to have an address branded on their skin, and many had considered Rosaline’s sister very lucky whenever they found out.

And no, she hadn’t quite lowered her standards to spending day in and day out at 1028 West Walnut, but she visited the location every few weeks or so, and it was because of her that Rosaline was so familiar with what some of the locals considered to be the haunted warehouse. 

Many a business had started and failed in stunningly short amounts of time, which, weirdly, Livia found comforting, as the first time the pair of them had been over there the warehouse had been home to a Republican Party meeting hall and Livia and Rosaline had garnered more than their fair share of raised eyebrows, despite being dressed with their uncle’s wealth.

A few months after them had come a coffee shop, followed by a bookstore and then a very small used car dealership. Livia and Rosaline had been to at least a dozen businesses that had tried and fallen short, and, as they neared the building, Rosaline noticed that the past month’s hair salon had been replaced with what looked like an art gallery.

Rosaline turned to look sharply at her sister, who looked gleeful and smug in equal measure, the way only annoying little sisters could manage.

“The chances of us both—” Rosaline started helplessly, thinking of her own soulmark, branded low on her hip, curling around her front and the singular reason she’d felt blessed when the high-waisted jean phenomenon started up and she’d been able to stop getting into fights with people who felt like they had the right to read and taunt in equal measure.

_—body paint? Well, I happen to be quite talented in all artistic mediums._ Had been branded on her as long as she could remember, and each and every one of her cousins had found it simply hysterical that prim and proper Rosaline would have such absurd words scrawled across her side.

“You can have today,” Livia says graciously, ignoring Rosaline’s scowl with practiced ease. “I have a good feeling about the art gallery lasting.”

They step through the archway, the place’s huge metal doors propped open and letting the breeze cycle through the open floorspace of the warehouse, which is currently littered with huge canvases and the occasional sculpture. Rosaline thinks the landscapes near the front are quite good, looks around between a pair of nature ones and one of their city’s beautiful skyline, the details quite impressive.

The gallery appears to be quite busy, the guests ranging in all types, from suited individuals on phones with clients and unshaven clusters of hipsters clutching cans of PBR like the stereotypes they are. Rosaline studies the biography of the artist, _Benvolio Montague_ , with some indifference, will admit she’s not the most cultured in art but that she’s never heard of them before.

Livia is already making friends, having abandoned her sister as quick as she can, scoping out any and all guests at this shindig, inviting herself into conversations so charmingly that people don’t seem to be bothered that this stranger is listening in. Rosaline sticks to following the taped arrows on the cement floor of the gallery, assuming that this is the order the artist had intended the pieces to be viewed in, is bewildered when she eventually blinks and realizes that the pieces had slowly grown more and more abstract without her noticing.

The one she is in front of is near the back, right next to the bar, where a blonde girl and a taller guy are laughing and teasing. The painting is interesting, she thinks, the blues of the canvas soothing despite their rather sharp angles. The problem, is, of course, that she can almost hear the farce of a conversation that’s happening between all of that giggling, and the nosy side of her that she hasn’t grown out of yet strains to pick up some of the words out of nothing more than sheer curiosity.

And immediately, she wishes she had just moved on, gone to the next painting, or turned back to find Livia, because as soon as she properly tunes into the conversation happening a few feet to her left, she feels her blood run cold.

“—body paint? Well, I happen to be quite talented in all artistic mediums.” the guy is saying, his voice low and slightly raspy, because Rosaline’s soulmate is really doing his best to pick up this other girl. From the way Rosaline can see her touch his arm, it seems to be working out quite well. Which is, fine, obviously.

Rosaline waits just long enough to see his tall frame swoop down and doesn’t stick around to see the kiss, instead finding her sister arguing with a pair of guys about the composition of a painting and also the moral issues tied to eugenics. Because of course she is.

“Are you ready to leave, Liv?” Rosaline asks her, cutting into the conversation before either man can start spewing his ableist bullshit again. Livia laughs, her face lighting up with it even though she’s being mocking, but all she does is nod and wave rather condescendingly to the two men as she and Rosaline walk back towards the entrance of the warehouse.

“Any luck?” Livia asks curiously, when they’re a block or so away from the gallery.

“Not today,” Rosaline says, the lie burning on the way out. “You?”

“Same,” Livia says, cheerful as ever. “We’ll just have to come back.”

*

They do go back, twice that week and three more times the following week, and Livia’s spirits don’t dampen because, as she says, she has a good feeling about the gallery. Rosaline keeps her head down and her eyes on the taped arrows or the pieces of artwork and does not let herself look for or listen to anyone that might be near her.

They enter their third week, and Rosaline has memorized each description plaque for each painting, and once again finds herself at the soothing blue square canvas. She likes it rather a lot, so much so that she manages to get over any lingering awkwardness she might feel about spending so much time in the place where she saw her soulmate and declined to say anything.

“You really like this one, huh, Roz,” Livia comments, when she finds her, and Rosaline, prickly attitude clashing horribly with the continued guilt of not mentioning having heard her words, manages a rather snotty _it’s just a big, blue blob, Liv_ that she instantly feels bad about.

Another thing to add to the growing list of unnecessary lies, she thinks, before her soulmate’s voice comments from her other side, “Some people just aren’t smart enough to appreciate the beauty in the abstract.”

Livia starts swelling up with indignation almost immediately, but pauses when Rosaline presses a hand against her arm and turns towards the guy, her eyes taking in details about him too fast for her to even process doing it.

Green eyes are narrowed at her, and he looks offended, sure, but he also looks like he’s been spoiling for this argument for years, which means her mumbled lie are his words, wherever they may be.

“Who do you think you are?” Livia finally snaps, and the guy and Rosaline turn to her almost simultaneously, but he’s the one to speak, mouth twisting up a little mockingly.

“I’ve seen the pair of you around here more than a dozen times and you still can’t recognize the artist?”

Obviously. Rosaline sighs, gets ready to have the discussion she’s been putting off with her sister whenever Livia gets the pair of them booted from the premises. 

“Why’ve you been paying such close attention to us, you creep?” Livia demands, self-righteously angry and too willing to defend her sister, even when Rosaline doesn’t need defending.

Rosaline mouths the word creep and swallows tightly, wonders how many matched soulmate pairs have had a three-week long gap between when one person speaks and the other one does.

Rosaline’s soulmate— _Benvolio_ , apparently—is about to reply in his own self-righteous anger, but a woman’s voice cuts him off, because she’s speaking rather loudly into her cell phone in front of the painting to Rosaline’s right.

“—1028 West Walnut,” she says, and Livia turns, full-bodied, away from Benvolio and Rosaline to stare at the woman, open-mouthed. “Escalus, you simply must come see it before I buy it!”

“Looks like you might have a customer,” Rosaline says uncomfortably, knows he probably thinks they’re non-matched, is entirely unable to bring up the words she has branded on her hip, hidden today underneath a simple cotton dress and some tights. “Congratulations.”

Benvolio glances at her, disbelieving, and she shrugs a little helplessly. Next to them, Livia is visibly steeling herself, and then Rosaline’s dauntless little sister marches right up to the stunning woman standing five feet away and says “I hope that was your brother on the phone, because I think we’re soulmates.”

“Haunted gallery my ass,” Benvolio mutters, and Rosaline scratches at her hip subconsciously. He’s got the eyes of a hawk, apparently, because his eyes snap back to her faster than she expects, and he raises an eyebrow in question.

“I’m not sure here is the best place to have this discussion, my sister making out with your client five feet away notwithstanding.”

“You’ve just said my words,” Benvolio tells her, studying her with an open curiosity that makes Rosaline feel a little warm. “Did I say yours?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Rosaline says uncomfortably. “Listen, I really have to get my sister before she makes a scene.”

“Are you going to come back?” Benvolio asks and Rosaline grimaces before glancing back at her favorite painting, feeling that same sensation overcome her when she studies it.

“Yes,” she says, keeping her eyes on the canvas, wondering if he can tell that she was lying about the painting or if she’ll have to admit that later on down the road. “I suspect we’ll be back.”

*

Livia is not pleased, to say the least.

“You’re telling me that you’ve known he was your soulmate for _weeks_?” She demands, not for the first time. “Roz, how could you keep something like that from me?”

“I hadn’t even said my words back, Liv!” Rosaline says, even though she knows that this is somewhat of a week defense. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up for a non-functional match, not when my words are his shitty pick-up line that he used on someone else!”

“And _that_!” Livia says, swooping down on her next point, the one Rosaline has just unintentionally given her, like a bird of prey. “Are you not the least bit bothered by that? You could’ve stopped that from happening!”

“I said his words to him today, about the painting I was looking at, Livia,” Rosaline says tiredly. “If I had gone over there and stopped it, they wouldn’t have been his words. And it’s not like we’re exclusive, Livia, this isn’t 1595—soulmates aren’t expected to wait for one another. I certainly haven’t. And neither have you, for that matter! Why are we even talking about me and mine when you’ve finally met 1028 West Walnut!”

“Because you met bodypaint three weeks ago and kept quiet!” Livia retorts, but she’s distracted now, thinking about the beautiful, terrifyingly competent woman she’d groped at the art gallery that morning. Isabella had groped back, and Livia could _feel_ the hearts in her eyes and fluttering around her head, and she didn’t even care. “She’s amazing.”

Rosaline smiles fondly at her baby sister, pleased like nothing else that Livia had met her soulmate and that it was a matched pair. Rosaline had been certain that the universe would not give someone so romantic and wonderful a non-match, but she was long-used to fearing the worst and, secretly, hoping for the best.

“What are the odds that we met them both at the same place, not ten feet from one another?” Livia muses after they have discussed Isabella’s perfect hair and amazing eyes and glorious left ass cheek and no-nonsense voice when she spoke to whom _did_ actually turn out to be her brother.

“I’m positive you know the answer to that question,” Rosaline teases, and Livia scoffs, embarrassed but not apologetic at all.

“Miniscule,” is all she says, hugging Rosaline tight for a second before sitting down on the floor between the couch and the coffee table so her big sister can fix her overgrown braids.

*

Rosaline does return to the gallery, and she goes back without her well-meaning but consistently obnoxious baby sister. Livia had been annoyed with that too, but Isabella had texted right then and Rosaline had been mercifully left alone.

Two young men all but accost her seconds after she steps foot in the place, the one with the shaggy haircut throwing an arm around her shoulders and steering her to the seating area off to the left of the entrance way, the second boy following behind, his charming white smile blinding against his dark skin.

“We heard you’re Ben’s forever girl, haven’t we, young Romeo?” says the one with the hair, and young Romeo rolls his eyes at his friend, smile only gone from his face for a second. “You better be careful with him, missy, our Ben is quite delicate.”

“Artist's’ temperament,” young Romeo says conspiratorially. “Ben’s been painting for days and—”

“I can’t take the pair of you anywhere,” comes Benvolio’s voice from behind, sounding agitated and embarrassed all at once. “Get off of her, Mercutio.”

Mercutio’s arm leaves Rosaline’s shoulders and she spots young Romeo’s very effective apologetic puppy-dog look before she swivels around in her cushy seat to watch Benvolio’s face shift between a dozen emotions in seconds.

“My sister’s a writer,” she tells young Romeo and Mercutio, not looking away from Benvolio and his messy hair and the jut of red paint along the side of his face. “I’m rather familiar with an artist’s temperament.”

Mercutio and young Romeo start giggling to each other and Benvolio shakes his head with exasperation, but she can already tell he loves his friends a lot, and that knowledge, combined with a shy look she didn’t expect after seeing him work his magic on the blonde girl that jumpstarted all of this nonsense has her getting up from her seat and walking up to him, an unapologetically unconvincing “I have a few questions about one of your pieces,” falling from her mouth that has his friends cackling even louder about _alone time_.

“I’ll call security on you two fools,” Benvolio hisses after she walks past him and towards the painting of the skyline of the city, but she can hear him hurrying to catch up to her, so she’s not worried.

She notices almost immediately that Livia and Isabella’s painting is gone, as is one of the landscapes from the front, and when she asks about it, Benvolio laughs, scraping a hand up the back of his neck.

“She was in here buying for her brother’s hotel,” he tells her, “I think that’s where the landscape is going. Something tells me she’s keeping the other one.”

“She better,” Rosaline says seriously, though she’s fighting a smile. “My sister is quite sentimental.”

“She’s younger than you?” Benvolio asks, and Rosaline nods, comfortable in talking about Livia the way she wouldn’t be if she were talking about herself. The pair of them make the now-familiar circuit from start to finish, walking slowly so they can talk about both the paintings and their respective family members. Benvolio is hard to get a read on, flip-flops between cocky and braggy one minute and embarrassed and closed-off the next, and Rosaline finds both versions of him wholly irritating, responding by complaining about each and every painting they pass.

They end up in front of the blue abstract piece, and Benvolio mocks her by throwing his words back in her face like she’s the reason they’re on his body and not the universe. Rosaline thinks about telling him the truth, but instead decides to tell him abstract art is the easy way out and listens to him rant at her for fifteen minutes about art techniques and mediums, rolling her eyes the entire time.

At the end of the night, she tells him she’ll be back, reaching out to squeeze his hand before turning and leaving, hailing a taxi before he and his artistic temperament get any romantic notions in his head about chasing her out.

*

It’s easy to keep coming back, stopping by after work and in the mornings on the weekends, before or after she makes it to the park district’s farmers’ market. It’s easier getting to know Benvolio.

Her soulmate likes to talk about himself about as much as she does, so the two of them sharing personal information is like pulling teeth, getting snippy and competitive all at once whenever a fact slips out that maybe hadn’t meant to. Slowly, the gallery empties as Benvolio’s paintings are being purchased, and when there’s only a few left, Rosaline stays until it’s time for him to close up shop for last time.

She helps him sweep, and dumps the last of the sodas down the drain of the little sink in the bar while he locks the enormous metal doors and pulls steel grates down over all of the windows. Standing at the bar is making her itchy with the feeling of dishonesty, and she doesn’t even notice Benvolio has finished locking up and made his way back over to her until he touches a hand to her downturned cheek.

Rosaline looks up at him, his high cheekbones made to look even more dramatic in the dim light of the closed art gallery, and suddenly the only thing she can do is lean forward a little and press a kiss to his mouth.

The hand on her cheek trails down to cup her gently at the side of her neck, and Benvolio kisses back, deep and thorough almost immediately, like they’ve been doing this for their whole lives.

Kissing Benvolio feels like a hobby she’d forgotten she loved, like she’s coming back to it after years away. He kisses her like it’s the main event, like he would be happy to do it for hours and hours, or the rest of their lives. 

“Oh, good,” Rosaline says when he pulls away. “I was worried you were all talk.”

Benvolio’s mouth falls open in offence, but when he catches sight of her smug smirk, an expression borrowed from him, he can’t help but laugh. He curls his fingers around her hip, right overtop her words, separated only by the thick corduroy of her fitted mini skirt. Rosaline feels hot all over, but the distant part of her mind that isn’t floating in a haze is already firing off potential ways to handle this.

“What do they say?” Benvolio asks quietly, because he’s pretty smart. He’s long since figured out that there’s something odd about their match: Rosaline hadn’t been surprised at all when he’d told her she’d said his words, but she also hadn’t reacted like he’d said them back.

“I’ll show you,” Rosaline says, drawing his hand to the first of the six buttons that go down her front. “But you have to promise you won’t get weird and sad.”

Benvolio drags his eyes away from where he’s already started to undo her skirt to look up at her face, offended again. “I don’t get _weird and sad_!”

“Yes you do,” Rosaline says, disbelieving. “It’s not a big deal. This just isn’t one of those times where you should.”

Curiosity about what her words say evidently win out over arguing a losing side, because Benvolio scoffs a little and kisses her again, quickly, before thumbing open a couple buttons and gently folding open the side of her skirt.

Rosaline grins a little when he groans and rests his forehead against her collarbone, clearly about to get weird and sad as she’d predicted.

“Not the body paint line,” he mumbles. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“Honestly,” she says casually, reaching up to get a hand in his hair. “I expected you to be a lot sleazier.”

“Can we lie to Romeo and Mercutio and tell them it’s something really charming and smooth?”

“Sure, if you want them to find out the truth from my sister.”

The heady, might-have-sex-in-the-gallery mood is effectively killed, but Rosaline kind of likes this mood too, Benvolio laughing embarrassedly, the two of them just comfortably sharing space.

“I guess I have to forgive the jab at abstract artwork,” he says at last, and Rosaline snickers, tugging at his hair until he straightens back up enough that they can share short teasing kisses, occasionally interrupted by Rosaline starting to laugh once more.

**Author's Note:**

> ick come talk to me on tumblr @ [rosalinesbenvolio](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com)!


End file.
